


Chain of Command

by PuppiesRainbowsSadism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: D/s relationship, Dom!Cas, M/M, Sub!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 08:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4600716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppiesRainbowsSadism/pseuds/PuppiesRainbowsSadism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is sick of how Dean treats Sam, so he orders Sam not to speak to Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chain of Command

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the things on my list of half-formed ideas that I’ve never mentioned but have wanted to write for a while. It involves Sam and Cas in an established D/s relationship that bleeds out of their sexual scenes and into everyday life, but I would hesitate to call it a 24/7 contract.
> 
> Dom!Cas, sub!Sam, and no actual sex.

Sam’s kneeling, naked, on the carpet with his hands behind him, as he has so many times before. But Cas isn’t pacing around him, or standing in front of him. He’s not doling out punishment tonight. Cas is kneeling right in front of Sam -- still fully clothed; that, at least, is the same -- and offering soft words of reassurance. He pulls Sam’s hands from behind him and kisses each knuckle like Sam is something precious, and there are tear tracks down Sam’s face that have been there for a while and won’t be stopping for a while, if Sam’s hiccupping sobs are any indication.

“I love you, Sam,” Cas mutters. “You know that, right?”

Sam nods silently.

“You’re worthy of that love. Did you know that?”

Sam hesitates, and ultimately doesn’t answer until Castiel makes it an order:  “Answer me, Sam. Do you know that you’re worthy of love?”

“N-no.” Sam’s voice is small and fragile through his tears. Cas knows Sam feels vulnerable, laid out bare on the floor in more way than one. That’s part of the point. “I’ve never thought that. You know that.”

Cas nods. He does know that, from the beginning and even now, Sam’s never thought himself worthy of any kind of love or acceptance or redemption. And the love of an angel? That had almost been too much for him.

But Cas also knows that Sam’s low self worth is little fault of his own. They’ve covered this issue a hundred times over -- _You are not an abomination. You are not defined by your mistakes or the wrongs done against you. You have the purest heart, the brightest soul, and the kindest and most selfless demeanour of anyone I’ve ever met. It was wrong of me to ever assume otherwise. Now you say it._

Winchesters are apparently known for bottling up their emotions until they manifest as violence. Sam laughed when Cas first suggested they talk about Sam’s feelings, and Sam’s suffered enough black eyes and split lips and bruised cheeks to prove the rule.

No, Castiel may be part of the problem, there may be a part of Sam’s brain that holds onto all the ways Cas has wronged him -- and rightly so. Cas will never be able to attone for how he has wronged Sam no matter how many times they go over it. But at least they talk about the problems between them. There are issues from ten years ago that Sam still uses to beat himself down with.

So this night is not about punishment. Sam has done nothing wrong. Castiel places the gentlest kiss on the bruised skin of Sam’s cheekbone and gives him an order. At first, Sam stiffens, and Cas thinks he’s going to safeword out, reject the order, and while that is Sam’s right if he ever feels uncomfortable, it would greatly disappoint Cas. Not the kind of disappointment that would lead to a punishment, but a soul-deep kind of disappointment that tells Castiel he’s failed as Sam’s Dom, his lover, and his friend.

But then Sam nods silently.

Cas breathes a small sigh of relief. “Let me hear you say it, Sam.”

“Yes, Castiel,” Sam answers as if reciting. “I accept your command and will follow it through until . . . “

“Until?”

“Until either you command me to stop or one of us uses a safeword.”

“Good,” Cas praises, kissing Sam’s forehead, and then his lips. “Stand up. Get the feeling back in your legs. Find your robe.”

“Castiel, we only use the robe for -- “

“For aftercare, yes. And now that the scene is over, I plan on taking care of you. Find your robe. I’ll run you a bath, and we’ll go to bed, if that’s alright with you.”

“Can you read to me tonight?”

Cas smiles and places one more kiss to Sam’s temple before standing up. He likes when Sam asks for things specifically. “Of course. We’ll pick up where we left off last time, until you fall asleep.” Cas offers Sam his hands, and Sam takes them thankfully, a little wobbly on his feet after kneeling for so long. “Your command begins when you wake up tomorrow morning. For now, just relax.”

Sam took a deep breath -- his shoulders slumped, back curved, head ducked. Cas would consider that a more dejected pose than a relaxed one, but he doesn’t call Sam out on it, instead leaving Sam to his own devices and thoughts as he goes to run the bath he promised.

~~~

Sam wakes up wrapped around Cas like a vine, as usual. After his bath, he passed out before Cas even had to turn the page. He was surrounded by Cas and his silky robe that felt great against his freshly clean skin, and he honestly couldn’t think of a better place to be. He’d gladly spend the rest of eternity just like this.

Then he remembered Castiel’s command, and the tension returned. Cas noticed immediately, of course, and held Sam a little tighter. “You remember?”

Sam nodded.

“Good. Spend your day as you normally would. It’s almost seven, so -- “

“So I should go run,” Sam finishes, sitting up and stretching, noting the way Cas’s eyes travel along his shoulders and back when the robe slips down. He might just have to capitalise on that later. For now, he climbs out of bed and gets dressed, stretches and is out the door before Dean is even out of bed. This is the easy part of the day, Sam knows, and he runs as long as he can make himself.

When he returns to the bunker, Dean is in his pyjamas, sipping from a steaming cup of coffee, and nods at him. These days, Dean’s barely coherent without a cup of coffee, so this must be his first. This is easy too. Sam takes a deep breath and ignores Dean’s half-hearted salutation as he goes to fill his own mug of coffee. Cas joins them soon after, continuing to hover several feet away from Sam, trying to discreetly keep an eye on him, and Sam knows exactly why.

When Sam is reading in the library, Dean comes up to him and asks, “What’re you reading, sasquatch?”

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, opens them again to look at Castiel, who shakes his head minutely, and goes back to reading.

Dean whistles at him. “Earth to Sammy. This have anything to do with the case?”

It doesn’t. The book is about ancient lore from a region of the world they’ve never been and likely never will have to deal with. It’s entirely for pleasure. But Sam still ignores him, because he’s been commanded not to talk to Dean.

“Whatever,” Dean mutters, eventually leaving them alone, and a little bit of tension leaves Sam’s shoulders when he hears the door click shut.

“Do you need to safeword?” Castiel whispers from the couch opposite.

“Are you going to tell me to stop?”

The answer to both questions is “no,” so they both go back to what they were doing before -- Sam reading and Cas watching Sam.

It gets progressively more difficult throughout the day. Sam never noticed how much, or how little, he and Dean really talked until he couldn’t respond.

“Going on a food run. Need anything? Running low on rabbit food?”

“Hey, I found this thing in Tulsa. Might not be our kind of thing, but you might want to take a look at it.”

Even the one-sided communication is difficult. When Dean hands Sam a bottle of beer, already opened for him, Sam has to squeeze a “thank you” in his throat before it can escape.

It’s not surprising that Dean gets more and more irritated as the day goes on. When Dean asks Sam what he feels like eating for dinner, and gets no response, it seems to be a final straw.

Too bad, Cas thinks. He was hoping to stretch this out a few days.

“Okay, what the hell is your issue, Sam?” Dean demands. “You’ve been ignoring me all day.”

“Not surprising since you almost gave him a black eyes yesterday,” Cas mutters, more to himself than to Dean, but Dean catches enough to be angered.

“What?”

“Cas,” Sam says, and it’s damn near a plea.

“What, does this have something to do with you two?” Dean accuses. He’s familiar with his brother’s relationship with Cas, even though he’d rather not think about it, and he usually doesn’t care what they do as long as no one gets hurt.

Now, apparently, he cares. Cas wants to laugh, but that’s bitter, even for him.

“Why should Sam want to talk to you?” Cas asks casually, considering his book of post-modern art as intensely as before. “You knocked him down yesterday.”

“Yeah, we fight, it happens -- “

“And the reason you hit him was because you believe he made a mistake on a hunt.”

“Yeah, he did!”

“Even though that ‘mistake’ saved all our lives.”

“If he had just followed orders -- “

“Oh, trust me, Sam knows perfectly well how to follow orders,” Cas retorts, getting angry himself and standing from his seat. “Isn’t that right, Sam?”

“Yes, Castiel,” Sam mutters.

“So you’re willing to talk to the angel, but not your brother.” Dean scoffs. “Great. This shit again. Remember the last time you trusted something supernatural over me -- “

“Dean, that is enough,” Cas interrupts forcefully. He rounds the table to stand in Dean’s space, paying no mind at all to the difference in height. Dean postures well, but they both know Cas is infinitely more powerful. “You never talk about your thoughts or your feelings to your brother, so why should he be obligated to talk to you about anything else? You’ve done nothing but beat him down. Yes, he’s made mistakes, but more often than not, he’s been misled, or abused, or manipulated, and you blame it all on him.”

“Cas, I swear -- “

“So I ordered him not to talk to you. And until he safewords out or I determine that you’ve earned the right to Sam’s company, he will not speak to you.”

“So safeword out, Sammy,” Dean shoots at Sam’s direction. Sam, for lack of a better word, looks demure, like he’d rather not be here, but he looks Castiel dead in the eyes and says, “Are you taking back your command, Castiel?”

“No, I’m not.” Cas can’t help but smirk in spite of himself.

“Then I will see your order through to the end.”

Dean scowls, and as he turns to leave, Cas grabs his arm to stop him.

“One of the first things young humans learn,” he says lowly, like a warning, “is that if they have nothing nice to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all. I want you to think about that.”

Dean huffs and tears his arm out of Cas’s grip, storming out of the room and shouting over his shoulder, “If Sam can’t tell me what he wants to eat, then I’m not making him anything!”

“That’s fine,” Sam mumbles. “I’m not hungry anyway.”

“You need to eat something,” Castiel insists. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I know, but I am seriously not hungry.”

“You need to take care of yourself, Sam.” At Sam’s sigh, Cas adds, “I believe there’s edamame in the freezer. I could heat some up in the microwave, and we can pick up where we left off in The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Sam smiles and stands. “That sounds like a great idea. But, um, I have to ask . . . “ Sam gnaws nervously on his lip, and Cas waits patiently for the question, as he’s learns he has to. “How long are you going to drag this out? The not-talking-to-Dean thing?”

Castiel looks up at Sam and traces the bruise on his cheekbone lightly with his fingertips. It’s less swollen now, but darker, more noticeable. “As I said, until you safeword or Dean learns something from this experience. Whichever comes first. Although,” he adds gently, “You know I would never ever advise such a thing in any other situation . . . but if Dean is to learn, you can’t safeword before he does. He’ll see it as you crawling back to him, and you know it.”

Sam nods sadly.

“But if it’s ever too much, you say the word, okay? Promise me.” Cas presses.

“I promise. You know I’m not shy about using the safewords.”

Cas thinks back on the times Sam’s had to safeword out of a scene and smiles sadly. “You go get into something comfortable,” he instructs, quite obviously changing the subject. “You can wear your robe if you want. I know you like the feeling of the silk. I’ll be right with you. Okay?”

Sam bends down for a swift kiss, smiles a little, and is off to their room.

Cas doesn’t know how long he’ll drag this out, but considering how he and Dean glare at each other from across the kitchen, it’s going to be a while. Cas silently prays that Sam is strong enough to follow through for as long as this takes.

.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT (20/08/2015): With all the requests, both here and on tumblr, for a continuation, I can definitively say that, at this moment in time, there will be no linear continuation of this fic in the form of another chapter or another fic. However, I may reference this fic in other D/s writings. I mean, I might change my mind. That's why I dated the edit. I'm known for changing my mind, so we'll see, but for right now, it is a definite NO.
> 
> Sorry.


End file.
